Note:Answers in Genesis (AiG) has recently divorced itself from its
Australian arm and is now called Answers in Genesis-USA. To avoid
confusion, Answers in Genesis both past and present is referred to
simply as Answers in Genesis or AiG.

The Self Appointed Creationist Papacy

This is a firstpart of a report on John Mackay,
head of an Australian outfit called Creation Research (CR). Mackay is an Australian religious fundamentalist. The
purpose of this section is to provide the background and indicate the extent
to which the nutters can't even agree amongst
themselves. The information I present here (perhaps) indicates some of the
reasons why the main Australian creationists have,
again, fallen out amongst themselves.

In
this section Mackay appears to show that Answers in Genesis
(AiG) was running a publishing scam
where authors of creationist books had to submit them to AiG for approval.
However, AiG charged the authors for what, in effect, is a bogus peer review
amongst creationists. If the authors refused to pay,
AiG
blew them out of the water with highly critical reviews.

Basically, authors had to toe AiG's line and pay them
for the privilege of doing so. This policy appears to have resulted in AiG
breaking apart. The Australian arm looks set to continue the policy with AiG
accepting all and any old rubbish, even that
which contradicts their own loony views.

AiG is a
creationist movement that had, until recently, operations centred in the
Anglo-Saxon world. Whilst headquartered in Kentucky in the United States, its
International arm had branches in Canada, the UK, South Africa, New Zealand
and Australia. The largest of these branches was in Australia.

Indeed, the organisation has its origins in Australia. In the 1970s two
Australians, Ken Ham and John Mackay, set up its forerunner. In 1987 Mackay
split from Ken Ham to create his own ministry, Creation Research,
also based in Brisbane in Queensland. Ham's
operation in Australia remained in existence but Ham moved to the USA on
secondment to another fundamentalist creationist organisation, the
Institute for Creation Research (ICR).

In
1996, Ham split from the ICR to form AiG and his Australian operation was
subsumed within it. The US arm was initially known as Creation Science
Ministries(CSM) until it and the Australian
arm, adopted the name Answers in Genesisin 1997.

Like Creation Research, the Australian arm was (and still is, in
its current form) based in Brisbane, Queensland. Until 2006 the Australian
operation looked to be the parent body of AiG with AiG,
based in
Kentucky,
as a subsidiary.

In
recent years, the biggest single project of AiG has been the building of a creationist
museum in the USA. See Answers in Genesis' creation ''museum'': a repository of
the absurd.This is not yet complete but has been funded
out of AiG's internal income rather than debt.
However, despite the substantial costs of construction of the museum, AiGis now considerably larger than ICR which appears to have lost its drive under
John Morris (son of its founder, the lying fraud Henry Morris). ICR is turning
over about US$4m a year.

In
early 2006 AiG's Australian operation
split from AiGwith most of the former renaming itself Creation Ministries
International(CMI). CMI
took with it the main operation in Australia and the operations in New
Zealand, South Africa and Canada, leaving AiG with the US operation and an
operation in the UK based in Leicester. The UK arm is still active.

The
little that is known about the splitsuggests that AiGobjected to the way AiG overall acted as a clearing house
for creationist literature. However, we suspect that clashes of personality
played a major role as well.

What is less clear is whether those behind CMI
were objecting to the huge amount of
AiG's income being spend on the museum. This is a
long-term project which has yet to produce any results, however defined (new
converts to creationism, income, etc.)

The
anecdotal evidence suggests that AiG's "clearing
house" policy was having a detrimental effect on the
income of what has become CMI.

The
revealing information we have is in an article by
John Mackay dating back to 2003 in which he slams Ham and Carl Wieland of AiG.
Wieland, an Australian, now described as managing director of CMI, was then a board member of AiG.(Wieland is not a scientist, he is a medical doctor. The
main "scientist" at CMI
in Australia is Jonathan Sarfati who hold a PhD in chemistry and also holds
joint Australian/New Zealand citizenship. Note that the term scientist is CMI's
term. I can't call them that. They are propagandists
for their cause).

I
have only been able to find Mackay's damning article
articleon AiG, called Creation
Research (Australia) Rebuttal to AiG
Criticism at one obscure web site, and it
isn't immediately clear from that site that the
article was written by Mackay.The web site is that
of the Twin Cities Creation Science Association(TCCSA).

It isn't
clear from the TCCSA web site what the context of Makay's
article is as one page, which may have been relevant, has been removed from
the web site, but it appears to centre on the TCCSA's
support for the second edition of a creationist book
called Unlocking the
Mysteries of Creation by Dennis Petersen, published in 2002.

AiG
had severely criticised the second edition but had given a very good review to
the first edition published in 1996. Indeed, it appears that AiG was retailing
the first edition.

Mackey attempts to explain the apparent turnaround. His language is strong. I
have attached the full Mackay article to the bottom of this
paper. Much of it is a
turgid rebuttal of AiG's "creation
science" in favour of Petersen's
view.

An
important technical point is that the TCCSA article does not include Mackay's
name nor attributes it to Mackay. However, I opened the web page for it with
Microsoft Internet Explorer and the tab at the bottom of the window states
"Comments by John Mackay on Dennis Peterson's
book Unlocking the Mysteries of Creation".

Confirmation that it was written by Mackay comes from the following extract
from the article:

This
editor is old enough to have been involved in science studies, lecturing in
geology, field work and creation studies for over 30 years, long enough to
know that basically everything he learned at university as a "scientific
fact," including the latest models of atoms,
geological geosynclines, biological theories on how evolution worked…

Mackay holds a first degree in geology and, indeed, has been involved in
creationist hocus pocus since the 1970s. He was a school teacher at an early
stage in his career.

Mackay begins his article with fists flying:

AIG/WIELAND have done it again and shame on them for it! They have managed
to publicly savage yet another long-standing creationist author and in the
process, throw another creationist publishing house into confusion and
uncertainty by their actions. AiG/Wieland offers to do pre-publication
reviews of any creationist writings for a price, with the claim that
"dozens of valuable hours of their high powered staff"
are expensive. But AiG has revealed a sad double standard in dealing with a
competing creationist author (who had turned down their offer of "review
for a price" and rejected AiG's offer of "taking
over the publication with AiG having final editorial say").
They waited until the author's new book was published. Then, with no charge
at all, they allocated their "high powered staff"
the time to attack this publication then released their brutal review for
free to the public – non-Christians included. Shame on them.

AiG's
criticism of the second edition of Petersen's
book was in the form of a 14 page pamphlet called Unleashing
the Storm. This piece of
hocus-pocus can still be found on AiG's web
site here.

It
isn't clear from the web site who wrote Unleashing the
Storm but Mackay firmly puts Ham and Wieland at the centre of the
action:

Following the publication of Dennis Petersen's book "Unlocking
the Mysteries of Creation", Ken Ham, Carl Wieland
and Answers in Genesis (AiG) produced a 14 page detailed criticism
condemning the book, which they placed as a feature article on their
publicly accessible website.

Indeed, the AIG
web page also includes a letter from Wieland to Petersen justifying AiG's actions.

In
a sense this is bizarre because it thus appears Wieland was involved in
practices which led to the split of AiGfrom what is now called CMI, with Wieland
becoming Managing Director of the latter. Moreover, Ham and Wieland have
co-authored at least one book, Walking Through Shadowsalthough I can find no other reference
to this book. It's possibly one and the same
with Ham's
book Dinosaurs of Eden.

Wieland's group has made a point of publishing material critical of bad
creationist arguments, on its website and in its technical journal. Ken Ham,
on the other hand, has made a point of publishing and presenting bad
creationist arguments.

(Lippard, based in America, is well known in
pro-science, anti-creationism circles.)

This shows that Ham was probably not the driving force behind the 2003 AiG
Kentucky
criticism of Petersen.

However, Mackay's conclusion to his article suggests
that the Petersen affair was the start of the break up of AiG:

AiG
made many thousands of dollars from selling Dennis Petersen's original
"Unlocking the Mysteries".
However, it seems a change in their whole approach has led them to unleash
such a storm of criticism at Petersen's new book, that what shows is not
concern for peer review scientific accuracy, but anger from a self-appointed
creationist papacy. Masterbooks/New Leaf Publishers (who publish many AiG
books) must be really confused as they have just released their own cover
edition of Dennis Petersen's new full color "Unlocking the Mysteries" and
promoted it in their catalogue to book stores world wide.

This apparent change in direction at AiG dates back to 2002. Lippard points
out that three Australians on AiG's
board in 2003
had stepped down by 2004 – these were Carl Wieland, Greg Peacock and Paul
Salmon.

Also of interest in these board movements is the fact that John Thallon, an
Australian accountant who helped lose the Creation Science Foundation
thousands of dollars in a bogus investment (he was a victim, not a party to
the fraud) moved to Kentucky about this time and is on AiG's
US board as of
2004.

AiG'sweb
site was heavily reliant on material from
AiG in Australia until late 2005. Material was supplied by people such as Don
Batten, Jonathan Sarfati and Carl Wieland.

Finally, It
also looks as if Mackay has considerable personal antipathy towards Ken Ham
and, indeed, states in the following quote from the article that AiG are liars:

Our
conclusion is AiG's public criticism of Dennis Petersen's new "Unlocking
the Mysteries of Creation" consists of a long
list of petty technicalities, deliberate misconstructions and some
falsehoods which overshadow any minor accuracy they achieve.
[emphasis added]

Mackay was working with
Ham until 1987 so it looks clear that Ham's management style has been at least
partly behind what now looks to be two splits in his movement (1987 and 2006);
three if you include his departure from ICR in 1994.

I also note that in December
2005 CMI (then AiG) launched an appeal for an expensive new
office block (priced at Aus$981,000). It isn't known whether this move was one of
the reasons for the CMI/AiG split.

In
2004, AiG
paid out a total of US$1,668,000 towards the construction of its museum, out
of gross receipts of US$12.49m. Of this, US$3.7m came from merchandising and
other associated revenues. That included US$1.601m from sales of books, CDs DVDs, etc. The construction costs exclude costs internal
to AiG in pursuit of the museum. (source: AiG IRS Form 990
(PDF) for the
year 2004).

Background
Notes

There is a
lot of information about AiG and Creation Ministries
on the excellent web site No
Answers in Genesisof
Australian John Stear. Stear is a fierce and
(in fine Australian style) blunt critic of the nutters. This
pagedetails what is
described as the bloody mindedness of AiG in its handling of the split with
CMI.

The main
organisations that I have mentioned tend to have similar names which may
confuse many new to the fundies' fantasy world of creationism.

John
Mackay's Creation Research
outfit
appears to be largely based in Australia and is a small operation. However, it
also appears to have a base in the UK (Creation
Research UK) which is actively
involved in managing Mackay's extremely controversial tour of the UK and his
behind closed doors teaching of creationism in a state school.

For
the purposes of his tour of the UK, Mackay is calling himself Internal
Director of Creation Research. The Manager at Creation
Research UK is Randall Hardy.

Mackay
appears to be working closely with CMI (despite his obvious
dislike for Wieland) and his web site (on 17 April 2006) stated
that Creation Research had teamed up with Emil Silvestru for a tour in
Romania. This statement indicated that Silvestru (and
CMI)
were preparing the ground for Mackay's visit to Romania in June 2006. Mackay's web
site wrongly states that Silvestru, a geologist, is with AiG. He is full time
with CMI in Canada.

Mackay
claims in his statement that there is an organisation called Creation
Research
Europe. Perhaps he was referring to Creation Research's
"World Team",
which can be found via a link from his Australian site.
However, what Mackay appears to refer to
is not an international organisation at all but a series of unpaid agents
mostly using PO boxes and email addresses as contact
addresses. Strangely, when one clicks on the USAlink on Mackay's
web site one is taken to a page listing his Australian "Team". And the
link to UNITED KINGDOMhas no contact details whatsoever except for a link to
a "UK Donations Form".

I
suppose that this might roughly be described as a ministry although I have no
evidence to show that Mackay has any theological qualifications or has been
ordained.

CMI has branches in Canada, South Africa and New Zealand but (it
appears) most of its people are in Australia. The New Zealand and South African
branches look to each be one-man bands.

I don't know
why AiG's UK ministry remains part of AiG's USA
operation rather than
CMI.

Incidentally, my own background is largely in satellite communications; one of
CMI's
regular (part time) speakers is Dr Mark Harwood. He has
long been a prominent figure in the Australian satellite communications scene,
both at the engineering and management levels. Apparently he has been a fundie
since 1979. He's basically an engineer but his 1st degree is in
physics and maths. I must say that I was astonished to hear of his nutty
creationist views.

Another outfit I came across is the Creation
Research Society (CRS).
CRS is another vanity publishing operation for creationists
"scientists" who
can't get their papers published in normal scientific journals. It's
independent from but has had a close association with ICR. (Note that I
take CMI, AiG and ICR to be vanity publishing houses for the
nutters).

Dennis Petersen is
president of the California-based
Creation Resource Foundation (CRF).
I must say that his web site looked to be poorly designed and, quite frankly,
full of drivel. It looks to be a one-man band organisation.

(Don’t
bother to read this if you have any common-sense; I only include it as
evidence.)

AIG/WIELAND
have done it again and shame on them for it! They have managed to publicly
savage yet another long-standing creationist author and in the process, throw
another creationist publishing house into confusion and uncertainty by their
actions. AiG/Wieland offers to do pre-publication reviews of any creationist
writings for a price, with the claim that “dozens of valuable hours of their
high powered staff” are expensive. But AiG has revealed a sad double standard
in dealing with a competing creationist author (who had turned down their
offer of “review for a price” and rejected AiG's offer of “taking over the
publication with AiG having final editorial say”). They waited until the
author's new book was published. Then, with no charge at all, they allocated
their “high powered staff” the time to attack this publication then released
their brutal review for free to the public – non-Christians included. Shame on
them. For further details, ask for the attachment “Leashing the Storm”.

LEASHING
THE STORM

Creation
Research responds to "Unleashing the Storm" – a critique by Answers in Genesis
of Unlocking the Mysteries of Creation by Dennis Petersen

Following
the publication of Dennis Petersen's book “Unlocking the Mysteries of
Creation”, Ken Ham, Carl Weiland and Answers in Genesis (AiG) produced a 14
page detailed criticism condemning the book, which they placed as a feature
article on their publicly accessible website. Rather than tediously go through
every criticism we have prepared specific responses to three typical examples
plus some general comments about our approach to publications by creationists
authors, AiG included.

LUCY

On page 129
of Dennis Petersen's book there is an item about "Lucy", a fossil often used
in museum displays on human evolution. The item is part of a two-page spread
on "missing links".

Petersen's item on Lucy is as follows:

“The
December 1976 issue of National Geographic magazine featured what was
thought to be a major discovery in Ethiopia. It was a collection of bone
fragments from a three-and-a-half foot-tall chimpanzee skeleton, found in 1974
by a young American graduate of the University of California at Berkeley,
Donald Johanson. The bones were claimed to be over three million years old.
They named it Lucy because the team was hearing their radio playing a rock and
roll song by the Beatles called “Lucy in the sky with Diamonds.” From about
1979 it gained the favour of many evolutionists as the key ape-like ancestor
of modern man though it is acknowledged to be a chimpanzee, but one that is
claimed to have walked upright.

Now there
are upright walking chimps living today, but how did they know that this old
chimp Lucy walked with an erect posture? The evidence was dependent on an
interpretation of the knee joint. After a university lecture in Kansas, a
well-informed creationist, Mr Tom Willis, asked Mr Johanson publicly where he
found that important knee fragment? The answer: a mile and a half from the
rest of the skeletal fragments in a rock strata 200 feet deeper! Next
question: Why include a fossil fragment so widely separated from the main
find? Johanson insisted “anatomical similarity” was all the justification
needed.

THINK! Is
that kind of evidence adequate to make Lucy your ancestor? Such evidence
sounds embarrassing. No wonder the popular evolution-sympathizing press has
not made it public. It's likely just a matter of time before Lucy is also
knocked from the branches of man's family tree.”

"Page 129. –
It says that Lucy is acknowledged to be a chimpanzee, but one that is claimed
to have walked upright. This is absolutely false. Lucy may have had many
chimp-like features, but this makes it sound as if everyone acknowledges that
it was just a chimp, which would have scarcely excited evolutionists. If it
were just a chimp, then they wouldn't have been able to claim that it
walked upright, so the statement, as it is printed in the book is
self-refuting. The book reinforces that by referring to this old chimp,
Lucy, and by talking about Lucy's chimp bones. There are indeed great
similarities between Lucy and the pygmy chimp, but also great differences,
which are not transitional, as the work by Oxnard and others have shown. And
Lucy did not walk upright, but was likely a knuckle-walker." (emphasis in
original)

Creation
Research responds:

AiG's
criticism totally misses the point Petersen is making. Petersen stresses that
any claims that Lucy walked upright were based on bones not part of the main
skeleton. Therefore, conclusions made about hominoids based on collections of
bones found in separate locations (which therefore cannot possibly be from the
same specimen), are not good science! This is an important point and should be
made.

Petersen's
reference to claims that Lucy walked upright is labelled by AiG as "absolutely
false". Since Donald Johanson published his claims about Lucy in the late
1970s numerous articles have been written and comments spoken about Lucy.
People on both sides of the creation/evolution debate have stated that Lucy
may have walked upright, although not in the same manner as humans. The same
can be (and often is) said about living chimps of both species, and therefore
does not prove Lucy had human characteristics. (We, at Creation Research, have
observed chimps doing this and so has anyone else who has visited a zoo or
wildlife park that has chimps.) The debate is well documented by Duane Gish in
pages 241-258 of Evolution the Fossils Still Say No! - a book
vigorously promoted by AiG.

Relating
Lucy to a chimp is also historically valid. Duane Gish's discussion (above
reference) makes several references to Lucy's chimp-like characteristics. John
Mackay and Diane Eager have both heard many leading creationists including
Duane Gish and Gary Parker say that Lucy is probably something like the
ancestor of a rainforest (pygmy) chimpanzee. See p.162 of Creation: the
Facts of Life, by Gary Parker, another book promoted by AiG. Some
evolutionists have also made this claim. (Behind the scenes the evolutionist
camp is deeply divided over many fossils claimed to be "hominids" but they
manage to maintain a united front in the face of creationist criticism.)

The
reference to knuckle walking in AiG's criticism comes from an article in
Nature, vol 404, p382, 23 Mar 2000, where two anthropologists from George
Washington University (USA) analysed the hand and wrist bones of several
Australopithecine's and found they had the same characteristics as extant
knuckle walking apes, including chimpanzees. But, this only reinforces
Petersen's point that Lucy is really an ape, and his point that museum
displays showing Lucy's bones laid out against a human outline are "baloney".

As Petersen
correctly explains on the same page, Australopithecus (the scientific
name given to Lucy) means "southern ape." Some purists would claim the word
chimpanzee or chimp should only be used for the animals Pan paniscus
(rainforest or pygmy chimpanzee) and Pan troglodytes (common
chimpanzee) and that Petersen should have used the terms "ape" instead of
"chimp" in his item about Lucy. This is a minor technical criticism and makes
no difference to the point Petersen is making about checking the original
fossil finds. Creation Research's only suggestion to Dennis Petersen would be
to use the term "chimp-like" instead of "chimp" in further printings of the
book.

DINOSAURS

AiG's
criticises what Petersen says on p.149 about the large sizes of many
dinosaurs.

AiG
criticism:

“Page 149 –
Says that reptiles keep growing and growing as long as they live. It implies
that the reason for large dinosaurs is not because they are genetically
programmed to be large, but because they were simply reptiles that lived for
many hundreds of years because of the pre-Flood conditions. However, if this
were true, why would there be some distinct types of dinosaurs, many of them
in fact, which, fully-grown, were very small? Furthermore, the reality is that
it is simply not true that reptiles always keep growing as long as they live.
Many types, if not most, reach a terminal size. There is no way a gecko or
skink, for example, will grow as big as a Brachiosaurus. Rather, the large
dinosaurs were genetically programmed to grow to that size from recent
evidence, most likely in a rapid spurt.”

But, what
Dennis Petersen actually said on p.149 is as follows:

“Animals
reach adult maturity when they are able to produce offspring. The fossil
evidence we know indicates that dinosaurs laid eggs like many of today's
reptiles. The biggest eggs were less than a foot long. It's possible that even
the biggest known dinosaurs were mature when they reached the size of a modern
day elephant. But what else do we know of reptiles and some other creatures
like fish? They keep growing and growing as long as they live.

THINK! If
the early earth's environment enabled creatures to live a much longer time
than they do today, then how large could they grow? Could the enormous size of
some the types of monster dinosaur skeletons be a result of having lived for
hundreds of years? “

Creation
Research responds:

You may have
noticed that what AiG is criticising is not what Petersen actually said.

Nowhere does
Petersen say that dinosaurs were “simply reptiles that lived for many hundreds
of years because of the pre-Flood conditions.” He challenges the reader to
think about the possibility that “some types of monster dinosaurs” achieved
large sizes because they have the ability to grow all their lives and the
pre-Flood conditions allowed for long lifespans. Neither does Petersen claim
that extant reptiles such geckos or skinks would grow as big as a
brachiosaurus, given long enough. Different reptiles do have different growth
rates and patterns of growth.

After
visiting reptile farms and talking with those who work with reptiles we agree
with Petersen that many reptiles keep growing all their lives, provided they
are in a suitable environment, are well fed and free of disease and stress.
The growth rate is not the same all their lives – many have a period of rapid
growth early in their lives and only grow slowly later in life. Nevertheless,
given right conditions they will keep growing all their lives.

As can be
seen in the above two examples, AiG's treatment of Petersen's book is similar
to the tactics used by the well known anti-creationist organisation the
Australian Skeptics who deliberately misconstrue and exaggerate what an author
has written, and then write blustering rebuttals about things the accused
author has not written.

SCIENTIFIC MODELS

AiG's
desperation to criticise merely for the sake of it is well illustrated by
their attack on a small paragraph in small print at the bottom of a two-page
spread on the origin of space, time and matter.

On page
19Dennis Petersen writes:

“Scientists
once used the “Cloud Model” to depict the atom. Now they realise the atom is
far more complex than they first imagined. The simplified planetary model was
popular for most of the 20th century. The recently developed “Lucas
Model” has no orbiting electrons, permitting the atom to remain stable with
electric and electromagnetic forces in equilibrium.”

AiG's
criticism:

“Page 19 –
The Lucas model of the atom is highly controversial and has had little peer
review either by creationist scientists or secular scientists. Further, those
creationist scientists qualified in nuclear and quantum physics, both within
AiG and well-respected ones outside AiG, reject the model. Moreover, even if
it were true, it wouldn't have the slightest effect on refuting evolution or
supporting creation, so it is completely irrelevant to the book's theme.”

Creation
Research response

A wise old
professor at my university used to tell his students each year that at least
50% of everything they would learn in their science course would be proven
wrong in the next 10 years. If only he knew which 50%, it would save him and
them a lot of time. But since he didn't they would learn all he taught them
anyway.

This editor
is old enough to have been involved in science studies, lecturing in geology,
field work and creation studies for over 30 years, long enough to know that
basically everything he learned at university as a “scientific fact,”
including the latest models of atoms, geological geosynclines, biological
theories on how evolution worked, and many things that creationists opposed or
promoted in science 30 years ago, have gone by the wayside. Meanwhile, God's
Word, including Genesis and all it says on creation have remained the same so
that what is proven to have mattered is a creationist author's ability to
encourage people to realize that God's Word can be trusted to endure. What
matters far less is an author's ability to convey the latest scientific models
concerning atoms or angels in order to prove creation, even though such
scientific models may have been peer reviewed by high-powered creationists
currently in vogue. Such creationist models may be just as quickly out of date
as the latest evolutionists' arguments and within 10 years may well prove to
be wrong. But God's Word will still say the same things about creation and
that's the point.

CREATION
RESEARCH CONCLUSION

In most of
their criticisms AiG has missed the main purpose of Petersen's book –
encouraging people to think about the world around them from a Biblical
perspective! Dennis Petersen has been prepared to consider some of the
strange and wonderful things in the world that evolutionists prefer to ignore.
Petersen's constant theme is: we may not have complete answers for them all,
but the mysteries of creation can be explained better by a Biblical worldview
rather than an evolutionary worldview. This is a view Creation Research will
continue to support.

There are
many subjects on which scientific opinion varies, even amongst creationists.
Provided an opinion does not deny Biblical revelation in Scripture and is
stated as an opinion and not fact, this is not a problem. There is much to
learn about the world around us and differing opinions merely reflect the
incompleteness of human knowledge.

It is for
this reason we have promoted and will continue to promote Dennis Petersen's
works. The core attitude of his work is God's Word has been revealed to us and
its detail is accurate, and Man's word, both creationist and evolutionist,
must be judged against what the Bible has to say. This is the test of any
valid book on creation and we will promote any books (including some from AiG)
which do this, regardless of AiG's approval. If Petersen's book had errors of
Scripture in it, or proclaimed that his views on scientific models were the
only view you could hold, then we would have nothing to do with it. But
Petersen's book, “Unlocking the Mysteries”, neverdoes this. He treats
scientific views, including creationist ones, with the reservation they
deserve. His whole approach is to encourage people to test out new or old
ideas against Scripture.

AiG made
many thousands of dollars from selling Dennis Petersen's original
“Unlocking the Mysteries”. However, it seems a change in their whole
approach has led them to unleash such a storm of criticism at Petersen's new
book, that what shows is not concern for peer review scientific accuracy, but
anger from a self-appointed creationist papacy. Masterbooks/New Leaf
Publishers (who publish many AiG books) must be really confused as they have
just released their own cover edition of Dennis Petersen's new full color
"Unlocking the Mysteries" and promoted it in their catalogue to book
stores world wide.

Our
conclusion is AiG's public criticism of Dennis Petersen's new “Unlocking
the Mysteries of Creation” consists of a long list of petty
technicalities, deliberate misconstructions and some falsehoods which
overshadow any minor accuracy they achieve. May the Lord return to them that
which they have sought to do to others until they learn that it is the power
of God's Holy Spirit who does the re-creating of fallen sinners through the
power of the Word of God, and not through the works of men, whether they be
creationist models of science, or evolutionist models. We beg AiG to humbly
change their attitude before they are humbled by the longest standing
Creationist and Author. We also note Ham is planning on running June seminars
in Australia labeled "Unlocking the Mysteries". Plagiarism is not usually
regarded as a compliment?